Card show trip - picking through odds and ends

These card find were from the big summer card show on the West Coast - for better or for worse, paying $35 to get into the door for an afternoon of mostly rummaging around poverty bins is the closest I'll get to a major show experience.

The National doesn't travel out west anymore and while it should be a bucket list item in an ideal world - I have not been a collector who makes plans to go across the country for a card show, like I have seen veteran collectors do it on YouTube.

I guess one of my goals for the show date I went to was to find a so-called personal collection card I didn't know I needed - reality hit as that might be such a random card in a showcase tht was going to cost around $1000 and that might not be much to others, but out of my league if I was just looking for something that caught my eye on impulse.

At one seller table, maybe the signage had the cards marked as '10 for $5.00' - so I maybe it was implied that you couldn't just buy one or two cards [though you figure, you might be building a stack anyway that may end up $15, %20 or $25 anyway.

I had to maneuver around the bulk monster boxes where another collector was planted digging and digging to make keeper piles - maybe I tried to pick up a pile to thumb through, even as the 'spacing' was a little awkward, even as it looked like the other guy was only focused on football cards.

I was kind of idly digging, maybe not really into the rummage - but after finding a Justin Verlander rookie, maybe it was worth building a little keeper pile for myself.

There was really a lot of cards but was this going to be where I blew my wad [?] - I found a couple of retro Mickey Mantle cards from the early 2000s; $0.50 material all day long, but one had the Triple Crown image that was once highlighted on the Dime Boxes blog and the other may be the image just about replicated as a painting on the iconic 1952 Topps Mantle.

I found a Juan Marichal card and while my intent is to focus on here and now guys - I may end up making keepers out of retired players retro cards as a fallback.

Finally, I found a couple of Rickey Henderson cards to salvage - where I make keepers out of a short list of all-around guys in my book.

At another seller's table, I was doing more idle digging where a good portion of the table was binned vintage / old school singles - I am acutely aware that rummaging through vintage / old-school cards causes me to glitch out at times, where these [msotly common] cards of rank and file players are just not from my time [or a time I might conjure up some faux nostalgia over either in 1996 or 2026].

I may have overpaid for the following compared to just grabbing the cards on eBay - but deemed a Dick Allen card and a Steve Garvey rookie as filling my vintage quota of the day, where it's an obligation to make some old-timey cards keepers.

Maybe Allen is still a 'newer' Hall of Fame legend for me to collect when I find cards of his in the wild - where I had not considered him before his induction into the HOF.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Garvey might have been a superstar as far as fan sentiment goes [even if he turned out not to be so perfect] - I have been able to get his autograph in-person a few times over the past 25 years, so he's good in my book as a non-HOF retired player.

Some Angels content from a random table - I think the seller may have double charged me for a pile '2 for $1.00' cards at another show somewhere, but maybe it was a one-time deal where I would give the seller one more chance [rather than completely avoiding the table for good].

I ended up bipping myself on a Jim Edmonds insert from 1996 - I found one copy of the Edmonds with the Kenny Lofton back; I thought it might have been a wrongback error and so I made it a keeper.

I also made a keeper of another copy - so I have an error and a regular / correct version of the card.

Going through my the cards after the fact - it ended up a case where a separate Lofton from the same insert set was stored in the same penny sleeve; I had to pry one card from the other since they were basically stuck together good.

The other copy of the EDmonds insert had two more of the same card in the same penny sleeve - it amused me to end up with four of the same card.

One last idle rummage through a #0.50 box at a seller table - I got a unique die-cut insert of Jeff Bagwell, which may not be a former player whose cards I am ever going to look to make keepers out of, but this was my second Bagwell of the day.

He ends up being rubber stamped as a 1990s debut guy for me - so there is a little lingering sentiment there I guess.

I know I have another copy of the Salmon in-hand but maybe I make keepers out of extra copies of cards I deem 'cool' or whatever - where I might have one card in my player collection and can use another card for a regional, Angels themed curated set perhaps.

This promo card might have cost me the $35 I paid to get into the show - where you got a little slip of paper to redeem at the Upper Deck booth at the show.

I know nothing about hockey where the sports is simply out of sight, out of mind - at least this card is of an actual professional athlete that might just be the young star [I looked him up for a moment] for the local NHL team, rather some odd non-sport subject pictured on a random card.